nellie mckay

A Week With Nellie McKay's "Pretty Little Head": Day 5

25 January 2007
tell your friends... tell your friends...

Words by Tony Conte // Illustration by Amanda Walker

I promised on Day No. 2 that I would soon provide a reasonable explanation for Nellie McKay’s album yawning and stretching itself out over two discs (a spoiled vixen carelessly indulging in the unnecessary space of a king-sized bed) when all of the songs could have been swept into a neat pile on one CD (still supine, yet curled up and dreaming on a twin).

There is no rational justification for two CD’s here. No clear segregation of styles between disc one and disc two. Each CD works as well as the other, and they would happily march shoulder-to-shoulder like a chorus line were they reunited onto one disc. But who cares? At times, Nellie’s voice is in combat with the music spitting out words with machine-gun rapidity. Other times, and those which I’m partial to, McKay’s voice and music rush nowhere. Lazy, melancholy submission to the inevitable loss which we covered yesterday. The point is that the same magic would happen regardless of the medium.

Taking notes from McKay’s strongest song on the album, “Gladd”, simplicity is key. I’ll say but a few more words about this album, then suggest that you buy it yourself because no amount of description or grade-school philosophizing about it can accurately portray its oftentimes stark beauty. Were it not for its brief bouts of insecurity, Pretty Little Head would most surely be a near masterpiece of colorful songwriting, musicianship and lyricism.

“If the breath was warm and tender/Now the breath becomes a yawn/I’ve been returned to sender/And I’m better since I’m gone.”

Nellie McKay plays up the dramatics when she must, and she tones it down when it’s time. You will not have enough of this album, you will devour it and want for more. Trust me. Just give it the time that it deserves.

Then you’ll be pining for the next installment, like a junkie you’ll be looking for your next Nellie fix. But don’t worry your… heh. Nellie will be back one day, and she’ll be stronger for having had the lonely nights which I imagine she must credit for having created this soaring group of songs. It is my assumption that the long line of McKay’s artistic trajectory from first album to second album stretches off toward an exquisite, unquestionably grand horizon.

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